Sibanye-Stillwater M&A chief quits as firm targets austerity

THE person hired by Sibanye-Stillwater four years ago to drive its merger and acquisition strategy has resigned from the company.The miner announced on Monday Laurent Charbonnier had decided to leave the company “for personal reasons”. His role, formally the chief commercial and development officer, will be taken up by Charl Keyter, Sibanye-Stillwater’s CFO on an interim basis.Charbonnier was previously MD of UK bank HSBC which was one of the lenders in Sibanye-Stillwater’s $2bn bid for Stillwater Mining in 2016. He had worked with Sibanye-Stillwater extensively from that point on many of its subsequent acquisitions.The departure of Charbonnier, described at the time of his hire in April 2021 as a sign of its global aspiration, comes as Sibanye-Stillwater focuses on debt control rather than expansion. At interim stage the group held R18.7bn of net debt and its net debt: adjusted EBITDA ratio was 1.43 times.As a result, expansion through dealmaking is probably one of the last thing on the company’s mind, especially while it focuses on commissioning its lithium mine Keliber in Finland, and considers an option over another in the US, Rhyolite Ridge.Last year Sibanye-Stillwater embarked on a strategy to cut net debt wherever possible. In December, it entered into a $500m gold and platinum streaming deal with Franco Nevada. The arrangement reduced Sibanye’s net debt:adjusted EBITDA by between 0.7 and 0.6 times, on a pro forma basis.It also sold its Beatrix 4 shaft, which provides access to the Beisa uranium deposit to Neo Energy Metals for R500m in cash and shares.Prior to that, Sibanye-Stillwater cut back on production at Stillwater, its US palladium platinum mine and chopped and lowered head office and regional cuts in South Africa, as well as reducing some staff at its gold and platinum group metal operations.In August Sibanye agreed to receive prepayment of R1.8bn in exchange for making 1,497kg of gold deliveries between October 2024 and November 2026. It said it would use the funds to partially repay its rand revolving credit facility.Writing about Sibanye-Stillwater’s prospects for this year, Standard Bank Group Equities analyst Adrian Hammond said that at current spot prices, the miner would avoid breaching its debt covenants with lenders.This would be achieved owing to higher gold and zinc prices, the $500m streaming deal and more restructuring at its PGM and gold mines. A further $100m could be raised from a chrome stream, he added.Sibanye-Stillwater had already won itself some breathing space with lenders in June after they agreed to increase their debt covenants.In terms of this, net debt of up to 3.5 times its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) can be registered by Sibanye-Stillwater. This compares to the current covenant with lenders that the company will not exceed net debt of more than 2.5x its adjusted Ebitda.The post Sibanye-Stillwater M&A chief quits as firm targets austerity appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com